


Not-Quite Silver Linings

by starry19



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry19/pseuds/starry19
Summary: "It took three days for the insanity of the visit from their future selves to decrease to a level she could cope with. Three days for them to catch hold of a shred of hope when it came to how, precisely, they were going to try their highly inadvisable trip back to save Rufus. Three days for it to not hurt when she smiled. Not that she smiled very much."





	Not-Quite Silver Linings

**Author's Note:**

> AN: For my beloved Garcy Tumblr fandom, who, after screaming wildly, put on their deerstalker hats and went full-on Sherlock Holmes about who was sleeping where the night Jessica stole the Lifeboat. Conclusion: Lucy was with Flynn. We have evidence.
> 
>  
> 
> And then there was absolutely no way I couldn’t write this. So, here we are.

 

—

 

It was a full three days after they returned from San Francisco that Lucy realized how very close she had been to dying. 

But not on that last, terrible mission. 

It took three days for the insanity of the visit from their future selves to decrease to a level she could cope with. Three days for them to catch hold of a shred of hope when it came to how, precisely, they were going to try their highly inadvisable trip back to save Rufus. Three days for it to not hurt when she smiled. 

Not that she smiled very much.

When Jiya had taken a short break from staring at computer screens, and only at Mason’s insistence that she eat real food for a change, Lucy had come to sit beside her on one of the hard metal chairs. 

There were any number of conversations they could have been having, ranging from the other woman’s three years- _three years_ \- in the past to their strategies to what the current Rittenhouse headquarters looked like. 

Instead, they were mostly quiet. There was a little solace in proximity, however, a sense of unity. She had meant what she said in that saloon - they were all each other had. 

Jiya looked up at her once, dark eyes haunted, exhausted. “I killed a guy,” she said abruptly. 

Lucy froze, cup of tea halfway to her mouth. 

“When Jessica first took me,” the other woman said. “And I escaped. I killed a guy to do it.” 

She nodded, because she did understand. “I killed a guy because of Rittenhouse, too,” she said. 

It was a sign of how dark their lives had become, that this was a conversation they were having, with absolutely no judgement rendered on either side. They had both done what they had needed to. 

Jiya took a breath and wrapped her fingers around her own mug. “I heard them talking a little bit, your mom and Jessica. Nice family you’ve got, by the way.” There was no bitterness, just a bleak touch of humor. “Jessica was supposed to kill you, that night she left. But she couldn’t find you and I guess she didn’t think she had all the time in the world to play hide and seek.” 

She blinked several times in quick succession. That night seemed like it was in an entirely different lifetime. Where had she been that Jessica couldn’t find…oh. 

Connor suddenly yelled for Jiya, and the other woman stood with an apologetic shrug. Lucy smiled blankly back, or at least she hoped that was the expression she was making. 

The only reason she hadn’t been shot by Wyatt’s wife was that she hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d tried, made some token attempt. Had stared at the ceiling from her place on the deeply uncomfortable couch cushions. There were about a million things she could have been thinking about, but none of the subjects would stick. Instead, they had been whirling through her mind like windmills, never stopping. 

She’d given up, gathered up her blanket, and knocked on a door that was now very familiar. 

Garcia Flynn let her in, sleepy-eyed and amused, and she’d spent the rest of the night in between him and the wall, the regular thrum of his heartbeat beneath her ear. He was warm, steady. This was…peaceful.

At least until all hell broke loose outside the door. 

But she’d had no way of knowing what was coming.

All she knew was that he felt like safety and sanity, broad shoulders and strong chest. It was no different that night than it had been the handful of times she had done this before.

He never asked any questions. Never turned her away. Never brought it up in the daytime. 

Just held her, let her sleep against his chest, or talked to her until the world made a little more sense than it had.    
She knew what he looked like when he was dreaming, what he smelled like, what the muscles of his stomach felt like under her palms.

She consciously tried to not think about what any of it meant. Was this about comfort or love or lust or something else entirely? Did it matter? 

He was open arms. 

He was safety. 

Apparently literally. 

There were orders out to kill her. And there had been an operative in the bunker. She must’ve walked by the door to Flynn’s room, but only an idiot would have tried it. 

The mental imagery that conjured up was enough to make her shudder, goosebumps rising on her arms. 

Lost in her waking nightmares, she failed to notice when Flynn appeared in the kitchen, jumping slightly when he sat across from her in Jiya’s vacated chair. 

He took a single look at her expression and sat down his coffee cup. “What?” he asked, but softly, long legs stretching out beside hers under the table. 

She tried to smile, to look nonchalant. 

He raised an eyebrow. _You’re full of shit_ , it said. _And I know it._

Yes, that was a problem, too, how well he did actually know her. That was mostly her fault. He’d asked, once, on a dark road in the 1930s. And she’d told him, had let him in. It made it very difficult to keep secrets from him. 

She shrugged. “I’ll tell you,” she said, since there really was no point in keeping it from him. “Just maybe not here?” 

He glanced around pointedly, silently reminding there that there were very few people currently present, but conceded to her request with an eye roll. 

They were very good at having conversations without speaking. 

Safely shut away in his room again, she tried to quietly and emotionlessly repeat what Jiya had told her. His eyes got darker, and she was very glad he did not use that expression when he looked at her, ever. 

When she finished, he swore very fluently in Croatian for a full minute. She could pick out a few phrases - he’d laughingly taught her a couple of curse words when she’d asked one night - but for the most part, thought it was better that she only had a vague idea of what he was saying. 

“We’re going to have to move locations,” he finally said, switching back to English, though his accent was slightly stronger than it normally was. He was ferociously angry. 

“Move locations?” she echoed. “Like…get a new bunker?”

He nodded. “Or safehouse, or whatever. Jessica knows how to get here, thanks to Wyatt. The last damn thing we need to worry about it them raiding us in the middle of the night.” He swore again, but quietly. “I should have thought about this the second we got back.” 

“To be fair,” she said, “we all sort of had a lot on our minds.” 

Like Rufus. And coming to face to face with the Rambo-esque versions of themselves. And just sheer grief. They’d all been reduced to focusing on small-term goals. _Get up. Get dressed. Eat._ It had been just about all they could deal with.

He spared her a glance that did not look amused, and she realized he was angry with himself, too. 

She stepped forward, sliding her arms around his waist. After a slightly surprised second, he pulled her in, cheek on top of her head. 

It was the first time she’d held him this way, in day time, without any sort of emergency or traumatic event in the works. At night, in the dark, it was easier to ignore the implications of what was happening between them. 

But maybe she didn’t want to ignore them anymore. 

The tension in him relaxed a bit, but she could still feel it - the need to move, the call to action. Garcia Flynn had been a solider since he was fifteen, and a spy after that. He didn’t take well to sitting around. 

Gently, he pressed a kiss to her hair, the first time he’d done such a thing. “You are, of course, going to be staying here at night until things are more secure.” It was not a question. 

She had not actually been sleeping anywhere else since they’d returned from Chinatown, battered and bruised and so far beyond heartbroken. She’d needed him then, needed him badly, and he’d been there with arms open. Well, she amended, _arm_ open, at least until he’d gotten sick of his sling. 

“Okay,” she said, quietly, and he let out a breath, one hand tracing down her spine. She closed her eyes, face in his chest, and relaxed a little herself. 

The clanging of doors outside told them someone else had arrived in the bunker. Since no alarms were currently screaming, it was, by default, Agent Christopher. 

Flynn stepped back, but slowly. “I need to go,” he said. “This needs to happen fast. Before we even make a play for Rufus.”

She blinked. 

He was probably right, but the abruptness of it was startling. 

He took in her expression, then gently touched her face. “For logistical reasons,” he told her, “you’re not going with us to save Rufus. That fourth seat has to remain open. We need a pilot, and likely all the firepower Wyatt and I can carry.” He paused for a moment, making sure she was with him. “I cannot disappear into the past for God knows how long, worried about what’s waiting for me when I get back. I’m not inclined to take risks with your safety, Lucy. Not when they can be avoided.”

Her eyes widened. God, what if…

What if the second the Lifeboat vanished, the alarms went off? Emma appeared, guns blaring? 

Well, she would be dead. One more body for Flynn to find. 

She turned her face up to see his, saw the very same thoughts crossing his mind. But behind the horror, and the fear, she saw an immense and terrifying blackness. She had brought him back, the last time, had believed in him until he had found his humanity again. 

If she died, however…

She didn’t think there would be any coming back for him.

Garcia Flynn was darkness incarnate, and brokenness, and… _hers_. 

Maybe, maybe he always had been, from the very first time she’d seen him, looming out of the fiery wreckage of the Hindenburg like Lucifer himself. When he’d pulled her in front of him, gun aimed at Wyatt, she’d gotten a sense of overwhelming strength. At the time, it had been terrifying.

She had the same sense now, but an entirely different reaction. He was there to protect her. 

She _could_ protect herself, and had. But it was just so very nice to know that he would do it for her.

“Okay,” she finally whispered. It was perhaps the one small source of comfort she could offer. She would promise to not take risks with her safety, beyond the ones they always took when they disappeared into nowhere, would promise to abide by the rules he set. 

He nodded in acknowledgement, then gathered her in his arms again, but briefly. 

With one last look backwards, he stepped out of his room. She heard him calling for Agent Christopher, and wondered if she should go lend herself to his side of the argument. Decided against it. What could she say that he wouldn’t have already thought of?

In the end, Agent Christopher had agreed wholeheartedly, as had everyone else. No one had really _liked_ the idea of putting the search for Rufus on hold, but then again, it wasn’t like the 1800s were going anywhere.

She slept next to Flynn that night, facing him in the darkness as they both laid on their sides. 

There were a few notable difference from the other times she had done this. Firstly, he’d moved the pillow to the other end of the bed, so he could face the door. When she’d figured it out, she was actually touched that he’d felt safe enough, that he trusted the team enough, to have not done it in the first place. She was sad that was all gone now. 

The second major difference was that before he’d joined her on the narrow mattress, he’d methodically loaded his gun and left it in easy reach. 

She’d eyed it warily from against the wall as he climbed in, taking up almost all of the available space. 

He’d rolled his eyes. “You do know guns aren’t in the habit of sporadically going off, yes?” 

“Yes,” she said, slowly. 

He ignored her lingering trepidation, sliding one arm under her head, the other resting across her waist. It was perhaps the best thing he could have done to ease her mind. What on earth could touch her here? 

With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes, burrowing as close as she could get to him. 

She was mildly surprised she had managed to fall asleep, given everything that was being set in motion. Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t have been. She was in the safest place she could be, wrapped in the arms of a very armed and very vigilant Garcia Flynn. 

In the morning, she kissed him for the first time, and she loved his shaking exhalation of breath as her lips moved over his, loved the spirals of pleasure that circled around her even more. 

There was a part of her that always remembered that he was a dangerous man. But not to her, never. 

When she raised her head, he smiled brilliantly, looking…well, awestruck, and it was difficult to not be in wonder at the effect she had on him. 

Around them, she could hear the sounds of the bunker coming to life. There was a great deal to do - their meager possessions needed to be packed, computer equipment to be disassembled, and all of the general chaos that attended a sudden move. 

With reluctance, she untangled herself from him. This time, she deliberately slid herself over his prone body on her way out of bed, and was delighted with what _that_ did to his expression. 

An hour later, the bunker was humming with activity. She was surrounded by boxes and cables and packing tape, and trying to not be run over by anyone rolling something large and electronic by her. 

She didn’t think she was terribly regretful about leaving this place. Yes, it had been her home and some weird semblance of safety during what was probably her darkest time. But when it came down to it, it was still an old army bunker with about ten minutes worth of hot water and World War II-issue _everything_. 

Their new place, wherever and whatever it was, probably couldn’t be worse. 

Maybe it even had queen sized beds. 

With that happy thought playing in her mind, she cheerfully wrote her name on the side of a box. Stacked it next to Flynn’s small pile of things. 

Wherever they were going, she was sure they were going together, and that was better than nothing. 

By a long shot. 

 

 

 


End file.
